On the Topic of RDM Magics

[Greatguardian]

Until we see people fielding suggestions in the melee thread about how to buff Magical Red Mage at an equal level to the buffs they're talking about giving to Melee, you can throw that "equal benefit" right out the window. This thread is about Magic. Aura effects would be awesome, but are really, really not Red Mage's style. They are pretty much only single-target spells, and that is likely never going to change due to balancing issues.

I don't want to get lost in neverneverland where the penultimate obscenely overpowered Mage class of FFXI suddenly needs Aura buffs and Ultima. We're not that poorly off. Small, unique tweaks and abilities that enhance what already makes us good would be ideal.

To that end, a legit Phalanx 2 would be awesome. Self-target, with higher damage mitigation and a more 99-balanced skill/potency cap. Gravity II would be awesome, and appears to already be in the works. I'd love to see Rdms get access to Break, even if its usage is limited to mostly fodder crap. Aside from that, being able to inhibit TP in some way may be useful. I believe that's a niche thing for a few other jobs right now, so that may not be possible. It would be cool, though.

An Amnesia spell would be amazing, but anything that mattered would probably just be immune so I'm not sure there's any point in adding it at all. Maybe a spell that acts similarly to Addle, but for TP moves? Forcing the monster to use TP moves either a certain % or a certain duration less frequently. This would be extremely effective on certain monsters which have permanent regain.

[Aliekber]

I don't want to get lost in neverneverland where the penultimate obscenely overpowered Mage class of FFXI suddenly needs Aura buffs and Ultima. We're not that poorly off. Small, unique tweaks and abilities that enhance what already makes us good would be ideal.

Well, they did nerf RDM soloing and RDM tanking pretty badly (both were very liked by me), so forgive me if I'm a little sore at the idea that RDM shouldn't get anything awesome, since we've had awesome things taken away.

They've said in the Manifesto that they want RDMs to be "Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements, while rendering once-formidable enemies impotent with enfeebling magic", so I'm running along those lines. Yeah, a full compliment of Aura buffs could be overpowered, and their manifesto vision is a bit of an exaggeration, but cutting out Haste cycles with HasteSphere (or making Haste and Refresh II Accessionable) would make the job less of a grind to play in large groups, and is pretty much a convenience boost. It's not going to lead to RDM Tank 2.0, or more bind-kite/pinning solos--the fear of which, let's be honest, is what really stops the devs from giving RDM more. They seem to like the duration enhancements angle, so taking that to its conclusion would be a great alternative (the cycle you run once every 7-10 minutes is much less of an annoyance than the one that starts 40 seconds after it ends).

At any rate, I don't think the job needs to be made more powerful as much as it needs to be made less of a chore. I like being a support, but Haste/Refresh cycles really suck. They're not even a little fun in the way that COR rolls are, with its blackjack-esque minigame. Single-target spells meant to be cast on everyone in succession is a stupid mechanic meant to eat up your time/make you constantly concentrate (it's less fun that spot-curing, which at least is reactive and takes a small amount of skill), and is a relic of Zilart-era design. If what I really wanted was to run a cycle, I'd get a second job flipping burgers and at least get paid for it.

Other thoughts:

- There seems to be a bit of schadenfreude from other mage job mains, who like to see RDMs not get what they want after years of being neglected themselves. Everyone can get cool buffs--no, really! It wouldn't be the end of the world.

- Camate has said in the past not to hold back and refrain from posting job suggestions just because they're overpowered, so that's what I did. Who knows, maybe something useful will come of it.

[Ketaru]

I thought I'd see who would entertain this idea after casually mentioning it one of the melee threads. But would anybody care to see spells that enhance player pets? I'm not going to lie and say I don't have a vested interest in such a thing happening, since one of my main jobs is a pet job, and one that most power players view as inefficient at that (BST).

But SE did say they are pushing to give all jobs endgame relevance. What better way to start than to end this nonsense of how pet jobs don't get the full benefits of enhancers? And what better way to push RDM in the Enhancer direction than to start making it so the job can work together with all types of jobs?

Maybe spells that grant -PDT% to pets? Or increase pet MAB? Or heaven forbid. Cure pets. Finally give some weight to the idea of sending disposable NPCs rather than living breathing players to their deaths that they can come back virtually unweakened from.

EDIT: Thought I'd throw out some ideas I thought about while trying to get some sleep. In general, I'm not a fan of posting concrete ideas because the only consistent thing about updates is that they're never as good or as bad as you think they are. But here goes:

Animist
Decreases the amount of damage taken by a target player's pet and enhances all restorative effects on their pet.

Ogre's Command
Increase's the Attack and attack speed of a target player's pet.

Medium
Confers Stoneskin and Blink effects unto a player's pet and increases the pet's Magic Attack Bonus.